


Took The Bones Of Me

by Cerberusia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, HP: Epilogue Compliant, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-27 11:45:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7616824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/pseuds/Cerberusia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In retrospect, he should probably have just lied and said he had no free order slots until next year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Took The Bones Of Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leontina (Leontina)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leontina/gifts).



> At last, my creature lives! Thanks go to my beta N, who edited this with ruthless yet sensitive pen; and to our dear dear Mod, who has forborne all my dithering with saintly patience and the occasional firm prod to the buttocks.
> 
> The title is from the Carbon Leaf song "Life Less Ordinary".

In retrospect, he should probably have just lied and said he had no free order slots until next year. But he couldn't have anticipated what accepting Malfoy's commission would lead to. Even when his stomach seemed to flip when he scanned the letter and found it signed _Draco Malfoy_ \- or had he known before? He hadn't recognised the Eagle Owl, but what about the curlicue handwriting on the envelope in deep green ink? Surely some part of his psyche had known even then, some remnant of his sixth-year obsession.

Even if it had, it hadn't prepared him for the strange swoop-and-flip in his stomach when he read that name in that looping scrawl - that, he remembered quite clearly. He had taken a deep breath to settle his racing heart, then another as blood rushed to his head; at length, when he stopped feeling dizzy and hot all over, he re-read the letter in detail.

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_I wish to order a bespoke country broom (catalogue no. 14) to the following measurements:_

_Height: 5'11"  
Weight: 10st 4lb  
Inside leg: 35"  
Wand: 10" hawthorn wood/unicorn hair, moderately pliant_

_Yours sincerely,  
Draco Malfoy_

What a stupid thing, he thought, to get het up about. It was only an order request; the only thing exceptional about it was the name at the bottom. Not even a postscript; no deviation from the perfect formal script. He scrutinised it greedily, poring over the looping green strokes, which had bled just a little on the thick cream parchment. The writing was completely impersonal - he tried to imagine Malfoy calling him _Mr. Potter_ without a sneer, and failed - but he committed the hand in which it was written to memory.

Then he forced himself to put the letter down, to put it away in its heavy embossed envelope, and go and make himself a cup of tea. He drank it at the kitchen table, watching the weak spring sunlight seep in through the windows. A shiver kept trying to start in the small of his back.

It was just a small aberration, he told himself. You haven't seen him in so long - it's only natural. Elation, fear and shock - it's perfectly natural to get the shakes.

The voice sounded a bit like Madam Pomfrey, but it failed to convince. He took another swig of his hot tea and wondered about getting a biscuit; but the biscuit tin had a Charm-Repellant on it to prevent the kids from getting hold of it with accidental magic, and he couldn't stand up right then.

The children. The children would be home soon: Molly only had them until dinner. Harry took a deep breath, then another, and for a moment the shakes only got worse - but then they receded to only a vague upset in his stomach, and he found he could get up and take the bolognese out of the fridge.

The thing was, he thought as he ladled the bolognese over James' spaghetti and helped him twizzle it round his fork - the thing was, he was going to have to see Malfoy. That was how bespoke broom-making worked, or at least it did if you had any sense of professional pride: the customer came in for a fitting. Malfoy was going to have to come to his little workshop in Stamford and Harry was going to have to fit him for a broom.

He would have fretted quietly in this way all through dinner had he not had to supervise feeding a four-year-old, a three-year-old and a two-year old. Merlin, what had possessed them to have three so close together? They'd wanted more than one and less than five and been more than pleased to get on with the business of making them; but now Harry, trying to discourage James from flicking peas at Albus, to encourage Albus to eat instead of staring at Lily, and to soothe Lily who was grizzling for no apparent reason, gloomily wondered whether it might have been better to have planned them at two-year intervals rather than one.

At seven o'clock the fireplace flared, and Ginny stepped out of it. She wore her dark blue and gold Chaser's robes and had a tiny smudge of ash on her cheek. Harry set the water boiling for more pasta, and she kissed him on the cheek before striding upstairs to get changed.

He'd corralled the children and heated up the sauce by the time she came back down, spelling her hair dry. He sat to her left at the table so he could keep an eye on the three toddlers now playing with enchanted blocks in the living room.

"Like a pig in muck," she said once they'd both finished inhaling their dinner. Harry made a sympathetic noise: Hepzibah Wellington's endorsement of emendations to the regulations on permitted play and Ginny's opposition thereof had been a common subject of conversation around this table for several months now. With Hepzibah's recent victory and apparently insufferable smugness, it looked as though this situation was going to continue.

"Absolute crap," she said, washing the plates clean with an alarmingly brisk flick of her wand. "Anyway, how have you been?"

Ordinarily, Harry's response at this point would be to make some comment on the volume of orders, or the sourcing of particular woods, or something amusing and/or alarming the children had done that day. Instead, he said,

"Draco Malfoy wants me to make him a broom."

" _No,_ " she said, turning suddenly to look at him. "He's got some nerve!"

"Well, it makes a change from how he was at school," he said, and they both snorted - and then said, in unison,

" _My father will hear about this!_ "

"A country broom," Harry continued once they'd finished sniggering, "so I suppose he probably wants to hunt mooncalves or something. So I'm going to have to have Malfoy there, in my workshop, _looking_ at things," he finished in disgust.

"Well, only if you accept his commission," said Ginny easily.

What an obvious answer - he didn't have to accept in the first place! - that had never occurred to him. He was suddenly able to envision himself writing back to Malfoy to say, _Thank you for your interest, but the workshop has had a great many orders and is closed to further inquiries at this time._

Immediately after thinking it, he knew he wasn't going to do it.

"That's a good point, love," he said with a meditative air; and nothing more on the subject was said.

He wrote back:

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

_I would be pleased to accept your order of catalogue no. 14 ("Bespoke Country Broom"). Please tell me what time you are available to come to the studio for a fitting._

_Yours sincerely,  
Harry Potter  
MASTER BESOM MAKER_

It was the perfect form letter, the kind he'd written so many times before. He looked at that _I would be pleased_ for a long while before he finally folded it up, put it in an envelope and placed it carefully in Laeticia's beak.

When Laeticia returned an hour later in a flutter of white wings - he hadn't asked for a Snowy Owl, but the manager at Eeylops had known - she held Malfoy's reply in her beak. Harry's stomach clenched when he saw the same heavy cream parchment and spidery emerald writing. Stupid, he told himself, and made himself take the envelope from the waiting owl.

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_Thank you for taking on my commission. I am available this Wednesday afternoon and evening - would 3pm be acceptable?_

_Yours sincerely,  
Draco Malfoy_

Was the penmanship different, since Malfoy had written it in a hurry? But Malfoy's handwriting had never been neat, and it all looked the same to Harry.

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

_3pm will be fine. Please arrive at The Three Ravens in Stamford, and I will take you to the workshop._

_Yours sincerely,  
Harry Potter,  
MASTER BESOM MAKER_

The appointment went on the household calendar: _3pm D. Malfoy (F)_.

Ginny didn't ask, and he didn't explain. He knew, in an abstract kind of way, that this was a problem: that they had got out of the habit of talking to one another about anything important. Harry had been used to sorting through his problems by himself, conditioned by a solitary childhood, and though it had been so thrilling at first to talk things over, to have Ginny put a new spin on it - well, it went faster when he sorted it out himself and told Ginny after the fact. These days, it hardly occurred to him to consult with Ginny on anything except the children.

They still talked, at least; could still have a conversation. They still _liked_ each other. But there was a lot they didn't know about each other any more. Why Harry had chosen to accept Malfoy as a customer would just be another of those things. Which was fortunate, because Harry couldn't have explained it if she'd asked. He didn't even succeed in explaining it to himself: he just sanded down the handle of a yew-wood broom and treated it with oil, and thought of nothing but the fine wood-grain beneath his hands.

The Three Ravens had a large fireplace for the comfort of those taking the Floo. Malfoy stepped out of it at one minute to three, and Harry recognised him instantly. There were, of course, not that many tall, thin wizards with white-blond hair; but aside from that there was something familiar in the set of the shoulders that touched something strange in Harry's chest. Then Malfoy looked up from flicking ash off his collar and they saw each other, and the physical reaction Harry had had to that first letter came back and his tongue went numb and for a moment he felt like he might burst into flames or be sick or both.

Malfoy was coming over at speed. Harry took deep breaths through his nose and hoped he didn't look like he was about to keel over. He was abruptly conscious that he was wearing Muggle clothes rather than robes.

"Potter," said Malfoy, rather stiffly, when he had come to an abrupt stop at Harry's table. His face still had that pinched look that Harry remembered from school. He had, at least, not called him 'Mr. Potter'. Harry's heart might not have been able to take it.

"Malfoy," he said with what he hoped was only slightly-forced politeness. It was fine. It was bearable.

He held out his arm for Malfoy to take for the Side-Along Apparition. It felt like extending his neck for an executioner's blade, because his mouth was dry with anticipation and his stomach turned over as he waited for the inevitable moment when Malfoy's long-fingered hand would rest on his arm, on his bare skin, and burn right through it.

"After you, if you don't mind," said Malfoy instead, with a startling lack of a sneer. Harry let his arm fall back to his side.

"You'll have to be quite precise if you don't want to end up in the Muggle part," he warned, silently adding _or splinched_ , but took a breath and Apparated with a crack.

When he next opened his eyes, he was outside his workshop in Fineshade Woods. Muggles, he knew, regularly walked and picnicked and rode horses in these woods; but in the Wizarding part, the oldest part of the forest, it was only him and the birdsong. For once the British summer was living up to its name, and the sunlight streamed warm through the close-packed trees. The knot in his stomach eased.

There was another crack behind him, and he turned to find that Malfoy hadn't splinched himself but had performed a perfectly competent Segundus Apparition. He was at once completely incongruous - that he should be standing in a forest with which Harry was intimately familiar, just outside Harry's own porch - and completely natural, displaced to the countryside in his smart black robes.

Harry wanted to say something, but couldn't think what; so without a word he pressed his hand to the brass doorknob of his workshop. It turned warm under his hand and the door swung open. The silver windchimes in the porch fluttered to produce a tiny melody. Malfoy followed him in, also silent.

The high ceilings and large windows of Harry's workshop were not readily apparent from its more humble stone exterior. The central space contained all that was necessary for Harry's trade: large branches divided according to wood type, boxes of twigs arranged likewise, and all the accoutrements necessary to make a broom a flying broom rather than just a household implement. Harry waved a box of footrests to rest more closely against the wall and motioned Malfoy forward. The space suited him; the light coming in through the windows gilded his eyelashes and lent warmth to his somewhat cadaverous complexion.

"Measurements," Harry said in a voice that came out slightly uneven. He cleared his throat.

"Yes, yes, of course," said Malfoy. He seemed to want to say something else, something more, but nothing more came out.

"You'll want to take off your robes," said Harry after a long moment.

"Yes, yes," said Malfoy again. And he did. He took off his boots, unknotted his belt, undid the clasp at the neck of his robes, and pulled them over his head. He tossed them over the chair, where their lining caught the light - black satin shot with threads of iridescent green and blue.

He was left in his chemise: a long silky cream shirt with a high collar, falling to his knees. It looked fabulously soft and luxurious; Harry rubbed his fingertips together to resist the urge to touch it.

Instead, he fetched his box of cedar twigs. He'd already known that he was going to use softwood for Malfoy, but he'd been half-expecting a yew stave to crack him in the face as soon as they got in the door. But it was the cedar that was humming, just a little, in its box.

He automatically Summoned his tape measure, which shot out of its drawer to bob excitedly in a circle around Malfoy's head. Malfoy arranged his expression into something like tolerance.

He took a few twigs out of the box, and paused.

Carefully, quite ignoring the tape measure, he got down onto his knees in front of Malfoy.

It was like - not being out of control, not like being under Imperius, but as if he was simultaneously not-there and at the same time more _there_ than he'd ever been when he wasn't fighting for his life.

He didn't have to do this. The tape measure hovered hopefully next to Malfoy's shoulder. He didn't need to touch Malfoy at all.

He kept telling himself that as he held the first potential tail bristle to Malfoy's calf. The hair there was fine and pale, almost invisible except where it grew thickly around the lower half. This close, Harry could see the blue veins underneath the skin.

The first twig was too short, not reaching Malfoy's knee - it would have to be an outer bristle. Harry tried the second. His fingertips now touched Malfoy's skin, and it took all his willpower not to flinch at the static shock that ran through him. Malfoy jerked above him, but made no noise.

The second twig was better, almost to the knee. He fumbled and almost dropped the third twig, which was - damn it, too long, hitting above the knee. He swallowed and kept his eyes on Malfoy's pale skinny calf as he sought out the fourth twig and held it - yes, that was just right! That and six others like it would be the heart bristles for the tail. He put a little red tag on it, and got to his feet.

-And got an eyeful of the tent in Malfoy's chemise.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he nearly fell down again. His knees turned to water. He staggered and grabbed hold of Malfoy's shoulders to steady himself: Malfoy put one hand on Harry's shoulder, as if to help, and the other high up on his thigh.

People had, on occasion, made passes at Harry, both before and during his marriage. Then, as now, he hadn't had a clue what was going on until very late in the game - but none of them had ever made him feel like _this_. His mouth was at once both dry and drooling, his skin was on fire, and even his _teeth_ ached with sexual desire. His vision was blurry. He couldn't look Malfoy in the face.

This wasn't the sort of thing he did. He had three kids, for Merlin's sake. And he wasn't the kind of man who cheated on his wife.

But if he did this, he would be. He would be an _adulterer_ , forevermore. He would be faithless.

Malfoy's fingertips burnt a ring around his thigh through the thick denim.

His breathing sounded louder than it should. The hand squeezed, just a little.

There should be some delicate way to excuse himself, to wriggle out of the situation, but he couldn't think of - anything, not anything. Malfoy's hand was so warm, so _there_.

Light-headed, he clutched at Malfoy's arm. The room seemed to close in around them: the open bright airy room became a dark tight closet, the two of them pressed tightly together.

It was ridiculous that he should be standing in the middle of his workshop in the middle of the afternoon with Draco Malfoy standing in front of him wearing only a silk chemise. It was beyond ridiculous that this should have led to Malfoy's hand on his thigh, his own hand tight on Malfoy's arm.

Malfoy's fingers trailed slowly up the inside of his thigh. Harry's mouth opened, but no sound escaped. His pulse hammered in his ears and drowned out the noise of the forest.

Malfoy was taller than he was, so he could only make out his white throat, not his face. He fancied he could see the pulse there flutter - but it was only Malfoy swallowing. The chemise was soft and silky under his hand. Harry let out a shuddering breath, and watched in fascination as Malfoy's shoulders trembled, just a little, as the warm air hit his neck.

There was no way out, Harry realised. It didn't matter if he stepped away from Malfoy and threw him out of the workshop this instant: he had still let Malfoy into his life once more, and he had still ended up in a clinch with him. Whatever he did or said or thought or wanted in the future, he would always have wanted Malfoy's hand to stop teasing his thigh and get a proper grip on his cock.

His hips thrust forward, a tiny aborted movement, and Malfoy did exactly that.

He didn't seem to know precisely how jeans worked, but the brief fumbling with button and zip while squeezing Harry's cock through the denim was so inadvertently sensual that Harry couldn't bring himself to care.

Objectively speaking, it was just a handjob: Harry could have achieved the same effect by masturbating. But it wasn't, in any sense, _just_ a handjob. It felt good to have somebody's else's hand on his cock, of course, especially a hand attached to someone who clearly knew what he was doing; but the most thrilling thing about it was that it was _Malfoy_ doing it, sticking his hand down Harry's pants and squeezing and stroking his cock because he wanted to get his hands on Harry, right here in the middle of Harry's workshop where he'd come for a fitting. It was pornographic, in the sense that this kind of thing happened in pornography, not in real life to real people.

Malfoy's other hand came to rest in the small of his back, pressing Harry forward and further into Malfoy's hand. Harry licked his lips and swallowed and took short breaths through his nose, and tried not to make a sound in case it broke the suspension.

Hastily, he manoeuvered his own hand so he was holding Maloy's erection through the thin cloth of his chemise. It was just as soft as it looked, smooth and silky - if it felt this good against his hand, it must feel amazing against Malfoy's cock, which jerked and pulsed in his hand.

Malfoy grunted and pushed into his hand. Wild, Harry shoved up the chemise around Malfoy's waist and grabbed for his cock - bare, he realised, and nearly gasped with excitement. All that time he'd been measuring, and here Malfoy had been with his cock hanging out, practically indecent.

He leant against Malfoy, who leant against him in return, and together they frantically jerked each other's cocks, their harsh fast breathing commingling between them. Harry buried his face in Malfoy's neck and inhaled his woody, oriental cologne - delirious, he recognised cedar notes in it.

Malfoy panted in Harry's ear, sensitising it until each hot breath sent a sweet tingling pulse down his spine. His gasping was just on the edge of vocalisation, tiny moans building in his throat that Harry could hear. His cock was rigid and burning hot, drooling at the tip.

To encourage him, Harry let out a small throaty noise that in any other circumstance he would have been embarrassed to utter; Malfoy's fingernails clawed down his back leaving a shockingly erotic sting.

"Ah," Malfoy wept, high-pitched and fearful, "hah!" Warm wetness spread over Harry's hand. The helpless jolting and shuddering and the feeling of Malfoy's semen on his fingers touched something in Harry, some deep raw thing, and he made a surprised noise and came too.

His clinging to Malfoy in the aftermath might, to an onlooker, have resembled tenderness. In fact, his orgasm had been so fierce that he wasn't sure he could stand up by himself.

But Malfoy -

The hand on his back stayed there, firm and warm, and the thumb began to trace little circles through Harry's t-shirt. There was pressure at his temple, then again higher up on his forehead: two kisses, dry and sweet.

Eventually Harry took a deep breath and started to disentangle himself. Malfoy followed, a little slower. Harry hoped it was because he still felt some post-orgasm wobbliness.

Malfoy Vanished the mess with a murmur and a lazy hand gesture. Harry thought he might be showing off, which was - well, very Malfoy.

They both put themselves to rights. Harry still couldn't look Malfoy in the face, so he watched his feet instead: long toes, prominent sinews, moisturised and manicured.

Harry was grateful for the birdsong: he didn't think he could have borne dead silence. But he couldn't think of anything to say as he put the cedar twigs back in their box, the heart twig marked with surprising neatness given what condition he'd done it in.

The awful thing was, he didn't really want to say anything. He didn't want Malfoy to put his robes back on and leave the workshop and never darken his doorstep again. He wanted to go back over there and put his arms around Malfoy properly this time. He wanted a kiss - a real one, on the mouth.

But if Malfoy had wanted a filthy kiss like that, he could have tipped Harry's face up and taken it. The intimacy of those two dry little kisses was of a different sort. Harry tried not to look completely confused.

But something must have shown in his face because Malfoy, still clad in only his chemise, said,

"Oh Merlin, are you going to be hopelessly middle-class about this?" It was the same arrogant drawl Harry knew from their schooldays. He sternly told his heart to stop beating faster.

"Sorry?"

"You know, 'Boo hoo, I had it off with someone who's not my wife, whatever shall I do', that sort of thing." It was somehow reassuring, Harry reflected, that Malfoy was still capable of being a magnificent arse, and still incapable of being witty.

"If that's meant to be me, you're crap at impressions." Harry tugged down his t-shirt. "And I wasn't going to say it to your face. I should have known you wouldn't care." A thought occurred to him. "Aren't you married?"

"Mm, at last. Asty's a nice girl. And she gave me Scorpius, of course." The pride in Malfoy's voice was obvious.

"I remember now - I saw it in the _Prophet_." For lack of anything better to do and very aware that he had yet to look Malfoy in the eye during this whole encounter, Harry motioned the tape measure to continue taking measurements. He tried not to dwell on the fact that one of them would be the size of Malfoy's penis, nor on the fact that he'd quite like to take that measurement himself. "He'll be in the same year as Albus," he added casually.

"Mm." The tape continued to work. This was _surreal_. Get off with Draco Malfoy then chat about your kids - why not? It was not lost on Harry that the situation ought to be a lot more awkward than it was. He'd never quite known what to say after sex with Ginny: 'Thank you' didn't seem appropriate and 'I just remembered we need more carrots' might be construed as unromantic. In fact, he hadn't been quite comfortable with Ginny in a romantic situation probably since Albus was born. That he'd rather be here -

He made himself look at Malfoy properly. He'd expected Malfoy to be gazing out the window or something, but in fact he was watching Harry with his pale grey eyes. For once, he didn't have a faint sneer on his face. If the idea hadn't been unspeakably absurd, he would have said that Malfoy looked _affectionate_.

The measuring tape finished and tucked itself away neatly back in its drawer. Harry cleared his throat. Malfoy put his robes back on, shot his cuffs fussily, and Disapparated.

Once he'd got rid of Malfoy, he Apparated home, changed clothes and took Æthelwulf for a walk. Some people smoked when they were feeling contemplative; some drank; some played darts or mowed the lawn. Harry walked the dog.

It didn't help that even the dog reminded him of Malfoy. Lucius had had two wolfhounds, a dog and a bitch, and three years after the War Narcissa had called him to tea and placed into his arms the fruit of their union. At six weeks, Æthelwulf's legs were already starting to turn gangly, and he sniffed and licked so enthusiastically at Harry's face and generally endeared himself so greatly that it took very little persuasion on Narcissa's part to convince him to take the puppy home a month later.

Æthelwulf was getting on a bit now for a wolfhound, even one raised in a magical household. But he was still agile and liked to stretch his long legs, so Harry anticipated that he had a good hour before they had to turn around and head for home.

He knew, intellectually, that people committed infidelity all the time. People of both sexes and all classes engaged in adultery and had to deal with a variety of consequences.

But Harry had never anticipated being one of them. Frankly, he'd always thought it was immoral. Malfoy could make snide remarks about the lower middle-class upbringing that had formed that view if he liked, but nevertheless he held it: he'd made vows about fidelity and he'd _meant_ them.

He thought about confessing it to Ginny, and found that he couldn't bear even imagining it. She would either be blazingly furious and probably throw him out, or - Harry couldn't think what else she might do. They didn't know each other well enough any more.

That might, he reflected with a sobriety he was proud of, have something to do with why he'd just unexpectedly had it off with Draco Malfoy.

But his crumbling marriage was a separate issue. What he needed to do right now was to remove temptation from his path. Now that he'd accepted Malfoy's commission, the only way to do this was to make the broom - as soon as possible.

Having made this resolution, he arrived home in quite good spirits just in time to receive the children and Teddy from Andromeda, who shepherded them through the Floo with the air of a majordomo.

Lily, he found out, had been very good today, as had Albus - no surprise there, since Albus was good pretty much every day. Both of them had earned a chocolate biscuit from Auntie Andy. Albus recounted this to him, prompted by Teddy when needed; Lily was still not speaking despite being two years old. The Healer had assured them that there was nothing to worry about and she'd start speaking in her own time; but Harry still worried, sometimes.

"And then he threw it ALL the way into the FIELD," enthused James when it was his turn to demand a turn in Daddy's lap. He had been very impressed by Teddy's garden de-gnoming skills. Harry was impressed by how good Teddy was with the younger kids despite not yet being eleven.

"Just you wait til you get to Hogwarts," he told Teddy, putting an arm around his shoulders. "They'll make a prefect out of you the minute they can!" Teddy smiled demurely - and a little slyly. Harry had always had the impression that Remus Lupin had been the sensible one of the Marauders and so assumed that any wild impulses in his son must come from Tonks; but he did occasionally remember that Lupin had in fact cheerfully colluded in almost everything his friends pulled, and felt an urge to call Andromeda and have her check that Teddy wasn't trying to become an illegal Animagus already.

He leant back in his chair and watched the children play with each other and the dog - Lily had a particular fascination with his ears - and in an abstract sort of way contemplated giving it all up.

He couldn't do it, of course. It didn't really matter how he and Ginny felt about each other as husband and wife: they were mother and father now, and nothing could change until the kids were grown. He loved being a father: it was being a husband he'd never got the hang of.

Though sexual obsession with Draco Malfoy was truly a new low. Just one more thing not to tell Ginny about, he thought blackly - but the real question was, would she even notice?

The broom. He had to finish the broom.

He'd expected Malfoy's broom to be difficult: for the wood to warp, the twigs to snap, the whole thing to refuse to conform to any acceptable model of a broom. But instead, it was easy. The branch curved under his hand into a saddle, the twigs bundled up straight to form the tail. It came so naturally.

He thought often of Malfoy when he was making it: it was impossible not to think of the customer when making a bespoke broom. He had Malfoy's measurements here on parchment and worked to them; but what occupied his mind was the memory of Malfoy's long-fingered hands, his prominent collarbones, his vulnerable knees. Malfoy's cock in his hand, hot and throbbing and vital.

It was fortunate that he and Ginny made love so infrequently these days, else he might have had some explaining to do.

The sparrows were out all the time these days, crowding the workshop, their song peeping through the glass. They weren't as magically sensitive as owls, but they knew something was happening. One late afternoon Harry heard the trilling, throbbing song of the nightingale while he was attaching the footrests. He thought he saw foxes once or twice in the woods.

The broom came together so rapidly under his hands that it only took a fortnight. Malfoy sent no letter, nor did he turn up unannounced at the workshop despite a dream Harry had that was so vivid that it seemed like a prediction.

Many laypeople thought that you made the broom, then you enchanted it to fly. This, as anyone with even the slightest bit of sense would know, was rubbish: the whole broom was built from essentially magical materials, in the same way as a wand. The wood came from magical forests where you had to ask permission from the local dryad to fell her trees for timber, and was formed by a wizard into a magically significant shape. Seven heart-bristles for the tail, seven little runes carved into the handle.

Malfoy's broom was made from cedarwood, red and aromatic. It was as tall as Malfoy himself and had a neatly bobbed tail so it wouldn't catch on the country brush. It was possibly the finest broom that Harry had ever made, and it was quite clear that the quality of its construction was down to the intimate knowledge he had of Malfoy and the fact that he wanted to know more.

He was thinking this as he stood in the clearing in front of the workshop, finished broom in hand. Visibility was good, and the air was pleasantly warm. He thought he'd caught sight of a deer earlier.

He kicked off the ground, and the broom rose smoothly into the air.

It was always strange riding somebody else's custom-made broom, because it was so obviously made to that person's measurements. Malfoy was a few inches taller than he, so the broom was longer than Harry was used to, but it was the little things - seat position, angle of the foot rests - that made the experience so strange.

The broom was like the man, long and narrow. Harry had thought of Malfoy's body while making it so often and in such detail that he could conjure it up now, could imagine it in place of the broom beneath his hands. He could imagine making love to Malfoy's pale, thin body.

He'd never tried it with a man before, though he knew how it worked. Before having it off with Malfoy in that room he'd have said that he'd never wanted to try it with a man, either - but now he was wondering whether he had. Those intense adolescent admirations for older boys - had something else been going on? At this remove, he couldn't tell. He'd always thought himself completely orthodox of sexual preference, and it was very disconcerting to be discovering at nearly thirty years old that he wasn't.

He'd never felt like this before, not even as a teenager practically crawling out of his skin with hormones. He hadn't realised that people _could_ feel like this outside novels. It consumed him completely - so completely that it was embedded in the broom he'd crafted while thinking of Malfoy.

It also made it painfully clear that he had never felt this way about Ginny. If Malfoy could have ordered this broom five years ago, before kids were in the picture, Harry suspected he might not be having this problem. But that was pointless: he'd got off with Draco Malfoy and liked it _now_ \- _more_ than liked it - and desperately wanted to do it again. He also wanted to have Malfoy look at him with that soft expression again, which was perhaps more distressing. Unquenchable erotic desire was inconvenient but could be dealt with: tender feelings were more tenacious and more wily.

The problem was, Harry decided as he drew up his legs and pressed his feet against the footrests to angle the broom downwards to land, that after all these years he was still interested in Malfoy. He'd disliked several people at school, but it was the same distaste he felt for artichokes, and now he was quite happy to let any knowledge he had once had of Pansy Parkinson fade into oblivion. But whatever Malfoy did _fascinated_ him.

He thought again about Malfoy's attitude, his curiously tender expression, and wondered whether the feeling might be mutual. Then he landed the broom, went inside and wrote two letters to find out.

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

_Your order of a bespoke country broom (catalogue no. 14) has been completed. Please come to the workshop at 3pm this Wednesday._

_Yours sincerely,  
Harry Potter  
MASTER BESOM MAKER_

Enclosed within this letter was another, smaller note:

_Draco,_

_When your mother told me she wanted us to be friends, I don't think this is what she meant._

_Wear the same chemise and sturdy flying boots. We're going for a ride._

_Yours,  
Harry_

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love ♥ You can also leave one on [Livejournal](http://hd-tropes.livejournal.com/35875.html).
> 
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